another outdoor picnic

The temperature was just right today and so for lunch we went out onto the park and sat with Anne and we ate while watching the people come and go.  There were a couple of bunches of school children visiting the Museum today.  They all marched single file in an orderly fashion.  I thought to myself that either they were all sedated or threatened within an inch of their lives if they so much as put one foot out of line.  There is a possibility they were both sedated and threatened.  However, I am fascinated at how school regiments us…………..stand in line, do not jump line, no talking in line, no breaking out of line for anything, follow the line leader, stand quietly, no pointing (you’ll poke holes in the air if you do – at least that is what my mother told me would happen), no staring at people with disabilities and no laughing at someone’s misfortune if they happen to drop their coin purse or school books or whatever.  At the Carnegie Museum there was a display that had a black and white checkered floor and the sign said “walk only on the black squares till you reach the other sign across the room”.  When we reached the other side and read the sign there it said, ”what was wrong with walking on the white squares?  They also are a part of the floor in this room.”  Well school regimentation wins again – follow directions and you will avoid a lot of problems in life…..even when faced with the incongruity of it all.

The handle cover on the bar that operates the cradle has been in sad shape ever since we started work at the archives and it has become a real problem, so we went to Home Depot and bought another piece of foam pipe covering stuff to put on the handle tomorrow.  That way my hands will have some sort of cushioning and perhaps they will not hurt so much with the new cover.  It hurts my hands when I have to push down on the handle to capture the image.

I talked to Sara today and Lyla was very proud of herself.  She colored in one of the hearts – only four more for her to color in and she can wear the heart pendant I sent her from the Sleep fairy.  She has to go to bed and stay in bed to be able to color in one of the hearts – there are five of them.  This child has a very hard time going to bed and staying in bed when told to go to bed at night.  She is more like the energizer bunny than any child I know.

David is insistent that we buy him Wolverine Boots.  This is a $175 outlay and it does not make me very happy that he is demanding this pair of boots.  We took him to Big 5 to get boots before we left for our mission and he was very happy to get them – they were over $100 into the bargain but somehow he has done them in just in 6 months of wear.  He always has been hard on boots and shoes but we just cannot keep buying expensive boots for him.  They have to be steel toed he says…..as well as being waterproof.  He works on the lawn crew and he does the sprinkler systems for them.  I told him to stop paddling in the Tempe Town Lake with his shoes on – that made him laugh.  He does seem to be doing better in this group home than he did in the other group home.

After three successful submissions to the headquarters, we have 7 reworks in the last submission.  Life is not a lot of fun.